“What the Netflix series Legends gets right about meaning, and what it still misses”

In her review of the gripping new Netflix drama Legends, Jemimah Wright reflects on the extraordinary bravery of undercover customs officers who risked everything to infiltrate Britain’s drug gangs in the 1990s. But beneath the tension and sacrifice, she argues, the series also exposes a deeper spiritual truth: that even lives filled with courage, purpose and good works cannot satisfy the human soul apart from Jesus Christ.

I have just started watching the Netflix series Legends. It’s about undercover customs officers infiltrating drug gangs in 1990s Britain. Based on real undercover operations conducted by Her Majesty’s Customs and Excise, the series dramatizes how ordinary officials were recruited, given entirely new identities, their “legends”, and sent into Britain’s criminal underworld to dismantle heroin trafficking networks from the inside.

My initial reaction was that they were so brave! These are not polished James Bond figures. They are ordinary people carrying extraordinary burdens. The show captures not only the danger of undercover work, but also the emotional fragmentation that comes with pretending to be someone else for years at a time. That realism comes from the fact that the series is rooted in true stories, particularly the experiences of real-life undercover customs investigator Guy Stanton, whose memoir The Betrayer inspired much of the drama.